Peace of Mind
by Amara the Warrior
Summary: After breaking up with his girlfriend, things just haven't been going well for Zell. And things seem to be getting worse and worse. With the help of Quistis he manages to survive his illness, the illness he never knew he had.


**Chapter One**

**And then there was darkness.**

_And then there was darkness. I couldn't tell what was happening to me, nonetheless explain it. I was being consumed by a dark entity and man did it piss me off. _

Zell had plenty of problems. First his girlfriend, Amy, of two years dumped him. Then, he was put on probation for assaulting his enemy Seifer. Things seemed to get worse and worse with each passing day. He couldn't stand it.

Amy was the library girl, the girl who stole Zell's heart when he first saw her. It was love at first sight. Zell wasn't one to believe in ridiculous things such as that but it felt real when he first laid eyes upon her. He couldn't describe the feeling.

_Her hair was beautiful, no, angelic. Her eyes were the most beautiful shade of brown that I had ever seen. Her skin was perfect. I felt like I could go for months ranting about how wonderful she looked. I guess, according to the other guys at school she would be considered hott, but I knew she was better than that. She was better than all the other girls at school. Why? Because she had something they didn't: a loving personality and arms that were willing to hold me for hours when I was feeling sad. Hyne, she was perfect._

But Zell quickly found out that nothing, no matter how good, lasts forever. Eventually they started to have problems and the problems weren't the small kind. Amy was angry with Zell for being out late all the time. She also disliked how he seemed to get into fights with every single guy at garden. Amy was the sort of girl who strongly disliked violence of any kind and Zell, being him was always the catalyst for it.

_I didn't know where the problems came from. It seemed like all of a sudden she was pissed at me. I didn't feel like I had done anything wrong. In fact, I felt like I was doing everything right. But to her, everything I did was wrong._

They would have fights about the most dumb of things. Zell would eat too many hotdogs and suddenly that angered her. Then, there were the serious fights. The fights about Zell staying out late and starting fights at school, those fights seemed to last an eternity.

_"Why do you have to stay out late all the time?" she would ask me. "Don't you care about how I feel?" Then it hit me. Maybe I didn't care about how she felt. Maybe, all this time, I was only thinking of myself. I deserved everything she did to me. _

_The things she did to me scarred me for life. She would hit me, well not really hit. Whenever she was mad she would slap me across the face. I can remember the stinging feeling that happened after her hand hit my face. I'm pretty sure there was a red mark on my face after it happened. _

_Well, the slapping and the fights weren't the only things that bothered me. She would call me dirty names. "You dick!" she would yell. "How could you do this to me? You obviously don't care about anyone but yourself. You're such a waste of human life, you useless cocksucker!" That left a whole in my heart. Suddenly the woman I loved had turned against me._

There was clearly no reason for Amy's out of character behavior. Their fights got too out of control. At times Zell felt like he was going to hit her. Of course, that would have landed him in jail and gotten him a bad reputation to boot. Things just weren't going right for him.

There was also anything that drove him mad: Seifer. Seifer was the sorceress Ultmecia's knight or as Zell liked to say, her "lapdog". He was a true screw up. He failed the SeeD field exam three times and that was a record for anyone. He just didn't seem to care about anything. He pissed off Zell so much. And sometimes, Zell thought he was doing it on purpose.

He would have to put up with so much from that bastard. The teasing, sexual jokes, and shoving that came along with it. He couldn't take it anymore.

_Seifer was a dick to me, probably because he knew he could be. He always used to call me "chicken wuss" and dumb shit like that. Hyne, it made me so mad. Didn't he know how stupid he sounded? Every day I had to put up with his shit and it drove me crazy. "Hey chicken-wuss," he would jeer. "How are things down there?" He would say immature things like that. One day, I knew I was going to get him for that._

And one day that's exactly what happened. Seifer had started out his usual routine of teasing and then Zell lashed out at him and threw a punch at his face. Seifer stumbled backward, confused at what had just happened. He didn't expect Zell to fight back so fiercely.

Soon, it got ugly. Zell jumped on top of him, grabbing a hold of his neck. He was trying to choke him. Seifer knew this was happening and immediately threw a punch into Zell's solar plexus. A crowd soon formed around the two of them. There was cheering and screaming but Zell couldn't keep track of it all. He was so focused on hurting Seifer. Revenge was the best possible option for him.

The sweet taste of revenge didn't last for long because as soon as Cid heard what was going on he immediately came over to break them up. He pulled them off of each other, with the help of the garden master's goons. He looked down on them with the look of disgust.

"I'm surprised at you, Zell," he scolded. "You're almost 20 years old and here you are acting like a mere junior classmen. I'm going to put you both on probation and see if your attitudes are adjusted."

Zell felt like he had been punched in the stomach. How could Headmaster Cid say that to him after all the hard work he had done for him? Zell had done so much for the old man. He had fought in the Second Sorceress War and had helped Selphie with the decorations for the garden festival. He couldn't stand being called a "junior classmen". The whole situation just pissed him off.

Zell had been on probation for about a couple months. He didn't like it one bit and couldn't wait until it was all over. Amy was gone, out of the picture. She had left him a month ago, leaving Zell deep in depression.

He couldn't stand it; there had to be a way out! A way to end the pain, the sorrow, and the guilt; there had to be.

When it was about lunchtime, Zell went to the cafeteria alone. He didn't really want any company. He wanted to be alone, away from the prodding questions that were sure to come whenever his friends were around. Sometimes, Zell regretted having friends.

He stood in line in the cafeteria, hoping to get some hotdogs. The lunch ladies always ran out of hotdogs by 1200 hours. It was another thing that angered Zell. Why couldn't things go right for him? It seemed like everything was going wrong and falling apart around him. And now, he couldn't get anymore hotdogs.

Zell patiently waited in line for the hotdogs. A couple of young men were in front of him; they couldn't have been past 17. It caused Zell to reminisce about the simpler days where his depression didn't follow him around like a dog.

He missed being 17. It was such a happier time, before anything bad was to happen to him. He had just met Amy and Seifer was seemingly gone forever (it would only be until Zell was 19, that he would come back to garden).

When it came time for him to order Zell immediately blurted out "hotdogs!" The lunch ladies immediately frowned at his request and gave him a look a mother would give her child when the child couldn't get what he or she wanted.

"Sorry Zell," they murmured. "There's no more hotdogs today." Zell slumped his shoulders and shook his head.

"Uh, well, how about a salad?" he asked hoping that food item wouldn't be gone as well.

They raised their eyebrows at him, aghast that a young man like him would want a salad. "Alright," they nodded. "Here you go."

And suddenly a huge lump of lettuce leaves were plopped onto his plate. Zell tried to smile politely but knew that the act itself was futile. "Thanks," he tried to grin.

_Every time I try to be happy it seems like it was just a waste of time. I'll grin and everyone will know that I really didn't mean it. I'll laugh and everyone will look at me, really concerned. Everything I do to try to keep up that happy face backfires._

Zell found a nice, round table to sit down and eat his food at. As he was eating he noticed a shadow on the table. Suddenly someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around, scared for the first time ever.

Zell yelped than mentally kicked himself in the face when he realized it was Quistis. "Oh, hi," he muttered apologetically. "I didn't know it was you Quisty."

She put her hands on her hips, smiling all the while. "Zell," she muttered softly. "What in the world are you doing?"

Zell looked up, confused. "What do you mean?" he asked sarcastically. "Did I break another rule and get twice as much time on probation?"

Quistis smiled and giggled to herself. "No, I was just looking at what you were eating. Zell, you _do_ know that isn't a hotdog?"

Zell narrowed his eyes at her. "What?! Can't a man get some peace around her without being questioned all the time?"

Quistis smiled at his spastic reaction and sat down. She blinked her eyes at him, her sapphire blue eyes showing him a reflection of his face.

_Quistis was another person who was a true beauty. She had it all: looks, brains, and a wonderful personality. We were together at the orphanage as kids. I don't remember much of those days, fragments only. She certainly was a good person, better than I could ever be._

"So," she began warmly. "How are things? I heard you haven't been doing so well since Amy broke up with you."

Zell swallowed the lettuce slowly. That was the last subject he wanted to talk about. He didn't mind talking about having no idea who his parents were, but he could _never_ talk about Amy. That was a forbidden subject. "I'm fine," he answered shortly. "I mean, things aren't the greatest, but I'm fine for the most part."

Quistis gave him an unbelieving look. Then, the look switched from being skeptical to being concerned. She smoothed her blonde hair as she talked to him. "You know Zell, we're here if you ever need to talk," she explained.

Zell rolled his eyes. If talking about Amy ranked first place in things he didn't want to talk about, than admitting his problems to his friends, especially his close friends' certainly ranked second place.

_I don't know what it was but I never liked to talk about my personal problems. I'm a man and men have a duty to be tough and deal with the problems that life gives them. To admit to other people that I'm not that happy and weak would be a slap in the groin. _

"I know that," he answered sharply. "That's what everyone's been telling me for the past six months!"

Quistis crossed her arms. "Then why are you being so stubborn? Come and talk to us, we care about you so much," she soothed.

Zell blinked his eyes, realizing that he was going to cry. Of course, he knew that he couldn't cry inside the cafeteria in front of Quistis. So, he continued to blink in order to make the oncoming tears go away. Quistis looked at him, concerned. Zell merely waved his hand in an attempt to protect himself from sympathy. "I've got something in my eye," he explained, trying to make sure that she, of all people didn't feel sorry for him.

Quistis raised her eyebrow. "Really?"

Zell, annoyed and frustrated not only with her, but with himself became angry. "Look, Quisty, I'M FINE!" he yelled. After he yelled at least a dozen heads turned to look at him. Zell wanted to kick himself in the groin; he had made a scene.

"Oh crap," he said to himself. "What the hell did I just do?"

Quistis patted his shoulder. "Do you want me to leave?" she asked softly.

Quistis leaving seemed like the most logical thing on his mind and yet, he didn't want her to leave. There was something about her that he found comforting in his time of distress.

"No," he said quietly. "I'll leave."

Wolfing down the remaining lettuce leaves he completely cleared his plate. He nodded to Quistis as he got up from the table and went to leave. He felt like the world was watching him as he did so. It was strange. At Garden, Zell was one of the popular guys. Now, he felt like an outcast.


End file.
